An educator has a lot on their plate. My college professor, James Cangelosi, once wrote in a book about how teachers are like doctors, only they have to deal with 30 patients and all of their individual problems all at the same time. There is always going to be more things to do as a teacher. It is the nature of the profession. We can only focus on and do that which we deem as the most important. Other wise we run ourselves so ragged that we no longer can stand, literally stand, on our own two feet. There are parents to e-mail and lesson plans to write and grades to post and assignments to correct and annotate as well as students to teach. Right now we are being bombarded with the fact that our students are underachieving. Okay they aren't just underachieving, to be frank they are not achieving anything. With an ever mounting demand to better educate the children of the future we are confronted with all of the new ideas and procedures that are to change they way we approach a classroom full of kids that want nothing more than to be adults. It is a hard time to be a teacher. However, it is through such hard times that diamonds are made and precious truths are discovered. This is a time where our backs have been put up against the wall and our survival skills are kicking in on all cylinders. We have tools to succeed. We just have to figure out which tools will be best for our situation. The following paragraphs highlight tools that I am sure you have heard of. It is important that we discuss briefly these ideas since this book is transfixed on the implementation of such tools in a manner that is conducive to our own situation.
What does the Professional Learning Community(PLC) ideologies have in common with the Problem-Based Learning(PBL)? Organization my friend. A lot of attention is put into the detail that is going on behind the scenes. For example I have sat in PLC conferences with Richard and Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker and Tom Many. They all present and talk about collaborative teams getting together to review, reflect and plan out the next move with as much precision and detail as a heart surgeon. On the other hand all of the authors of PBL talk about designing ill-structured problems that have open ended results or answers to them. Such problems are scaffolded so perfectly as to ensure that student direct their attention towards the problem skill that you are trying to develop. In a true PBL environment the student is able to pick up on the information that they are lacking, research it out and figure it out all on their own. In a Professional Learning Community a school faculty and administration are to come together to find ways to "Enhancing Student Achievement." All and all you could say they are working towards the same goal. However how can a teacher accomplish all of this planning and organization on there own? imply put, a teacher can't reorganize a schools structure so as to add more study and extra help time during a school day. One teacher cannot figure out the perfect problem set that could be used to guide the students learning with perfect precision. You need help. You need buy in from your comrades. This is a "journey" as often quoted by he many PLC books out there. PBL problems are never going to yield the perfect result. That is kind of part of the package. However, you can provide a very rich and engaging opportunity for students to learn and grow from. The students will learn a lot more than you know. In fact they may actually learn how to endure through a problem set or find a joy in figuring out a problem on their own. This may lead to help us in those long lecture days in which a direct instruction or drill and kill methods are needed to give students extra practice on their algebraic skills.
This is all great information if I do say so myself. But we are here to learn of the different inquiry based methods out there, how to build them and how to apply them at the right time in our instruction. To get started you need to watch the following video in which Dan Meyer highlights several key points that occur in the classroom as well ideas we can use to help solve these problems.
My thoughts after watching such a presentation. I can do that, that makes sense and it shouldn't be too hard to do on my own. If this is Problem-based learning sign me up.
What does the Professional Learning Community(PLC) ideologies have in common with the Problem-Based Learning(PBL)? Organization my friend. A lot of attention is put into the detail that is going on behind the scenes. For example I have sat in PLC conferences with Richard and Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker and Tom Many. They all present and talk about collaborative teams getting together to review, reflect and plan out the next move with as much precision and detail as a heart surgeon. On the other hand all of the authors of PBL talk about designing ill-structured problems that have open ended results or answers to them. Such problems are scaffolded so perfectly as to ensure that student direct their attention towards the problem skill that you are trying to develop. In a true PBL environment the student is able to pick up on the information that they are lacking, research it out and figure it out all on their own. In a Professional Learning Community a school faculty and administration are to come together to find ways to "Enhancing Student Achievement." All and all you could say they are working towards the same goal. However how can a teacher accomplish all of this planning and organization on there own?
imply put, a teacher can't reorganize a schools structure so as to add more study and extra help time during a school day. One teacher cannot figure out the perfect problem set that could be used to guide the students learning with perfect precision. You need help. You need buy in from your comrades. This is a "journey" as often quoted by he many PLC books out there. PBL problems are never going to yield the perfect result. That is kind of part of the package. However, you can provide a very rich and engaging opportunity for students to learn and grow from. The students will learn a lot more than you know. In fact they may actually learn how to endure through a problem set or find a joy in figuring out a problem on their own. This may lead to help us in those long lecture days in which a direct instruction or drill and kill methods are needed to give students extra practice on their algebraic skills.
This is all great information if I do say so myself. But we are here to learn of the different inquiry based methods out there, how to build them and how to apply them at the right time in our instruction. To get started you need to watch the following video in which Dan Meyer highlights several key points that occur in the classroom as well ideas we can use to help solve these problems.
My thoughts after watching such a presentation. I can do that, that makes sense and it shouldn't be too hard to do on my own. If this is Problem-based learning sign me up.